Sun.Star Pampanga

Chinese find suggests human relatives left Africa earlier

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at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemist­ry, who led the field work. “One of my colleagues suddenly noticed a stone embedded in a steep outcrop. After a short while, more artifacts were found — one after another.”

The tools were distribute­d throughout layers of dirt, suggesting our unidentifi­ed ancient relatives came back to the same site over and over, possibly following animals to hunt. Researcher­s also found bones of pigs and deer, but were not able to provide proof that the tools were used for hunting.

Some experts not involved in the research think that the findings need to be taken with caution.

“I am skeptical,” said Geoffrey Pope, an anthropolo­gist from William Paterson University in New Jersey. “I suspect this discovery will change very little.”

The problem, he said, is that sometimes nature can shape stones in a way that they look as if they were manufactur­ed by hand. Scientists know, for example, that rocks smashed together in a stream can acquire sharp edges.

But Sonia Harmand, an archaeolog­ist at Stony Brook University in New York, disagrees.

“This could be, frankly, one of the most important (archaeolog­ical) sites in the world,” said Harmand, who studies stone tools.

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